If you were a kid of the late 1970s or early 1980s, the possibilities are that your number one wish was to own a games console. The one to have was the Atari 2600, notwithstanding that dreadful E.T. game.
Of course, there were other consoles during that era. one of these also-ran products came from Coleco, a business that had started in the leather business however by the mid 1970s had diversified into handheld single-game consoles. Their ColecoVision console of 1982 offered well initially, however experienced terribly in the video game accident of 1983. By 1985 it was gone, as well as though Coleco went on to have further success, by the end of the decade they as well had faded away.
The Coleco story was not over though, since in 2005 the brand was relaunched by a successor company. at first it appeared on an all-in-one vintage console, as well as then on an abortive attempt to crowdfund a new console, the Coleco Chameleon. This campaign came to a halt after the Chameleon prototypes were shown to be not rather what they seemed by eagle-eyed onlookers.
The latest twist comes from the console fan site AtariAge, on which it is declared that Coleco is issuing DMCA takedown notices to ColecoVision fan pages as well as designers of fan games for the platform. It is uncertain whether the reason is a concern that there may be some adult material for the console in the wild or that there has been some type of conflict with an private developer, however it is difficult to determine the logic behind widening the web to an entire community.
Let us put it this way. There are early 1980s consoles as well as computers that you will not have heard of, since they do not have an active on the internet community. That you have heard of the ColecoVision is not since it was a wildly succesful gadget in its day, since it was not. It was one of the players, however it never accomplished the cultural significance of the Atari or the Japanese machines that came after it. instead you have heard of the ColecoVision right here as well as now in 2017 since it has a band of lovers who have kept it alive. A brand is nothing without its neighborhood of loyal fans, we right here at Hackaday understand this extremely well since it is you, our readers, who keep us going. Your on the internet fans are the footsoldiers of your brand; they provide you free advertising to a significant value, just since they like you. Why on earth mess with that?
For a brand owner to go after the neighborhood who have kept it to life during decades of dormancy in this way can barely be referred to as an astute move, indeed we would have to question whether somewhere a Coleco executive has just stated “Hold my beer”, or “Hey you guys, watch this!”, before choosing up a shotgun as well as reserving his location in the foot gunshot ward of his regional hospital. keeping that level of advertising brilliant behind it we await their next console with interest, we’re sure it will accomplish fame, of a sort.
Here’s our report on the Coleco Chameleon prototypes, as well as of program it’s worth reminding vintage gaming fans that when it comes to treading on the toes of game console manufacturers, Coleco has form.
Via Hacker News.
ColecoVision header image: Evan-Amos [Public domain].
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